Storage
August 18th, 2010 at 04:36pm
Under Storage
A recent article sponsored by the Trusted Computing Group and published on Computer Technology Review looked at why self-encrypting drives are almost a legal necessity yet need not be expensive nor painful to introduce and manage. Furthermore, disk drives supporting TCG’s Opal specification for hardware-based encryption are around twice as fast as software-based systems.
Continue Reading Why you need self-encrypting drives
Tags: opal
By Ken Y-N
August 17th, 2010 at 04:07pm
Under Storage
Toshiba have come out with an interesting concept, the self-deleting drive. Basically, a disk compliant with the Trusted Computing Group’s Opal full disk encryption standard can be erased instantly by just deleting the key, so what Toshiba has done is to allow the host device administrator to configure when the drive should be erased, such [...]
Continue Reading Self-encrypting Self-deleting Drives
Tags: opal, toshiba
By Ken Y-N
August 17th, 2010 at 03:59pm
Under Storage
According to this post on the Trusted Computing Group’s official blog, Gartner have recently published two reports on self-encrypting drives, with a lot of space devoted to the TCG’s efforts regarding the Opal specification. The author predicts in one report that within five years all drives will ship with encryption as standard, and their testing [...]
Continue Reading Gartner evaluates self-encrypting drives
Tags: gartner, opal
By Ken Y-N
July 26th, 2010 at 04:26pm
Under Storage
A recent article by Thomas Coughlin for the Gerson Lehrman Group discussed a few reasons why the Trusted Computing Group’s Opal specification for self-encrypting drives is also applicable to solid state (Flash) drives. Two benefits that I hadn’t realised were available are 1) the cryptographic secure erasure feature of Opal, zapping the decryption keys in [...]
Continue Reading Further benefits of Opal on Solid State Drives
Tags: gerson lehrman group, opal, thomas coughlin
By Ken Y-N
July 20th, 2010 at 04:07pm
Under Storage
With solid state drives based around Flash memory becoming more and more popular in not just portable computers but also in desktops, the question of securing them also becomes more and more important. On Monday 16th of August 2010 there will be a Flash Security Workshop as a pre-conference event at the Flash Summit in [...]
Continue Reading Flash memory security issues
Tags: flash
By Ken Y-N
June 28th, 2010 at 03:09pm
Under Storage
A recent post on Computer Technology Review by Robert Thibadeau, Ph.D. from Wave Systems on behalf of the Trusted Computing Group listed a number of reasons why one should encrypt notebook computers, and why a hardware solution such as the Opal specification from the Trusted Computing Group is the best. It reports a study: One [...]
Continue Reading Why you want hardware-based disk encryption
Tags: computer technology review, opal, wave
By Ken Y-N
June 7th, 2010 at 02:19pm
Under Storage
BusinessWire recently published a press release from Hitachi on their new ultra-slim drives, a mere 7mm thick with a 2.5 inch platter, up to 320 GB capacity, and Trusted Computing Group’s Opal self-encrypting drive standard ready. Engadget also has a picture of said drive, but the hand holding it seems to be male in shape [...]
Continue Reading Hitachi’s super-slim self-encrypting drive
Tags: hitachi, opal
By Ken Y-N
May 21st, 2010 at 04:08pm
Under Storage
The official Trusted Computing Group blog has an article regarding protecting your data with TCG Opal spec-compliance self-encrypting drives, an important practice given the cost of data loss. The case study covered in the article was Mazda, who found that a hardware-based solution had less of a performance overhead than their previous software-based solution, and [...]
Continue Reading Self-encrypting drives invaluable for workplace compliance
Tags: mazda, opal
By Ken Y-N
April 26th, 2010 at 04:24pm
Under Storage
A recent press release from Origin Storage announced the release of their Enigma SED (Self-Encrypting Drive), which is based around an Opal-compliant 2.5" hard drive from Toshiba with some added-value on top that doesn’t seem to be described too clearly. I think it is that they also provide cloning software to allow existing drives to [...]
Continue Reading Enigma Self-Encrypting Drive announced
Tags: enigma, opal, origin storage
By Ken Y-N
April 2nd, 2010 at 03:00pm
Under Storage
Browsing through Wikipedia, I came across some rather bizarre text on Hardware-based full disk encryption. A paragraph reads: Currently there is an effort by Microsoft, that has a software FDE product called Bitlocker to block TCG commands through their Windows Operating System. This effort is in the IEEE 1667 group that was founded by Microsoft [...]
Continue Reading IEEE 1667 versus TCG’s Opal
Tags: ieee 1667, opal, wikipedia
By Ken Y-N